Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has said that there aren’t plans for Fortnite to be updated to run on Steam Deck.
In a series of tweets posted to Sweeney’s personal Twitter, the Epic CEO explained why Fortnite will not be specifically updated for the Steam Deck. A Twitter user asked Sweeney if Fortnite would be updated to work with Proton. If you haven’t heard of it, Proton is a compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux.
In response, Sweeney said that there’s no plans to get Fortnite to work with Proton. But he did note there’s “a big effort underway to maximize Easy Anti Cheat compatibility with Steam Deck.”
When asked why not, Sweeney then responded by saying “We don’t have confidence that we’d be able to combat cheating at scale under a wide array of kernel configurations including custom ones.“
It’s understandable that Epic wouldn’t want to run any risks with a game as massive as Fortnite. Sweeney even noted this himself. He responded to a comment about not trusting his own product saying “With regard to anti-cheat on the Linux platform supporting custom kernels and the threat model to a game of Fortnite’s size, YES THAT’S EXACTLY RIGHT!”
This doesn’t mean that Fortnite won’t technically be playable on the Steam Deck. If a player installs Windows on to the handheld console, you should in theory be able to run Fortnite. For the time being, it seems that the game’s official availability on Steam Deck is a ways out.
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Featured Image Credit: Epic Games